Guangfu cultural exchange held in Jakarta

A Guangfu cultural exchange event titled ‘Departing from Zhuji Xiang’ was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday (27/8) as an effort to introduce and preserve Cantonese culture to the Chinese community in Indonesia.

Secretary General of the Guang Zhao Indonesia Association Huang Xian’an said that quite a number of Chinese Indonesians are descendants of the Guangfu community, but the spread of this culture in Indonesia in recent years has remained limited.

“We hope this event can serve as a momentum to introduce Guangfu culture more widely while encouraging its preservation and transmission to the next generation in Indonesia,” Huang said in a statement on Friday.

Guangfu culture is the culture of the Cantonese people rooted in Guangzhou and its surrounding areas in Guangdong Province, China.

The series of activities combined the history and culture of Zhuji, which has been passed down for thousands of years, with the cultural diversity of Indonesia as an archipelagic nation.

Zhuji Xiang is known as the ancestral homeland of the Guangdong people. Centuries ago, people from various parts of Guangdong departed from Zhuji Xiang and migrated southward, crossing the seas to Southeast Asia.

These migrants brought the Cantonese language, traditional opera, and Guangfu customs and traditions, which later developed within Chinese communities across Southeast Asia.

The event also provided an opportunity for the Chinese community in Indonesia, both those who have long settled and those who are relatively new residents, to learn about the history and culture of Zhuji Xiang as well as Cantonese opera from a different perspective.

Through this cultural exchange, it is hoped that the historical and cultural ties between the Guangfu community and the Chinese community in Indonesia can continue to be maintained and passed on to future generations.